


Carving Forgiveness in Stone

by Delouest



Series: Sigh No More - Malika Cadash [9]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blackwall Spoilers, F/M, Forgiveness, I'm sure there's a dirty joke about whetstones and wood in here somewhere, Revelations, Romance, Skyhold, woodcarving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 19:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3500090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delouest/pseuds/Delouest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How was it that she kept finding herself here, standing outside the stables seeking out this man she’d told herself to forget?"<br/>~*~<br/>Malika Cadash seeks out Blackwall after they fight about his past. Overcoming pride is hard. Forgiveness is harder. </p><p>Obvious spoilers for the Blackwall romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carving Forgiveness in Stone

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone out there who is conflicted about loving and hating Blackwall, this is for you. I hope you enjoy!

Malika Cadash had sworn to herself that she wasn't going to come back. Blackwall didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve _her_.

She didn’t consider herself particularly proud. It wasn't that she had no right to be, but coming from the Carta she’d found that putting herself in the background was the best way to make sure she stayed out of trouble. And this whole Inquisition business was a matter of circumstance.  If she hadn’t been at the Conclave when it exploded...

But there was nothing she could do about that now. She was marked as a hero, quite literally, she thought, turning her hand over to stare at the green glow on her palm. She had people coming up to her every day telling her to hold her head high (whether that was a commentary on her height or race, she wasn’t sure). Most of the time she managed to remain unnoticed, even with all the rumors and fame that surrounded her. So she wasn’t used to the feeling of avoiding something because of what other people might think, even if that person was herself.

Maybe especially then.

Malika had told Blackwall to leave her alone, and to his credit he’d listened. He was good at following orders… _good to a fault_ , she thought darkly, thinking of his past.

How was it that she kept finding herself here, standing outside the stables seeking out this man she’d told herself to forget? She knew little of magic, but she would swear there was something unnatural happening. Why else would she still be affected by him after what he’d done?

Deciding that she did not need her pride as much as she needed to speak with Blackwall, Malika stepped forward.

Blackwall was sitting in a chair near the fire pit scraping at a block of wood with a knife. Curls of pale wood fluttered to the ground at his feet. He was hunched over, head lowered in concentration, so she couldn’t see what he was working on. The scritch of the metal on wood stopped when he sensed someone nearby.

“Blackwall?” she asked, grateful her voice did not shake.

He looked up, and realizing who was there, froze, as though she were a halla he was afraid of spooking.

“Blackwall?” she repeated quietly when he said nothing.

He seemed to drink it in, her saying his name with no sharp edge. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose and held it a moment before releasing heavily. “Yes...?” he said. It was clear he was unsure how to address her. His instinct was to call her “my lady,” but he was still shamed from the last time he’d tried.

_I am not your anything anymore. No part of me is yours._

Her words were fire; they’d burned him. The Inquisitor was a force of nature, more heat than ice, and he had not yet healed from the last time he’d gotten too close. He was more cautious now.

He cleared his throat. “How can I assist you?”

“I came because,” she started. She fiddled nervously with her hands at her sides until she finally pulled out a dagger from a sheath in a concealed pocket at her hip.

Blackwall, startled, tipped back in his chair until it tumbled. He caught himself before he fell along with it, leaping up and dropping his woodcarving but retaining his small knife. “Maker’s balls!” he bellowed. He held his tiny carving knife in a shaky hand, knowing he would never strike Malika with it, but standing at the ready all the same.

They stood like that for a moment, the Inquisitor casually holding out one of her daggers with a loose wrist and Blackwall in a defensive fighting stance until Malika let out a bark of laughter. “Blackwall, you’re full of sod if you think I came here to slit your throat. I would have done that ages ago if that had been my goal.” She’d given it some idle thought, of course, but no more than any woman did with an ex lover.

“I, uh. Warrior’s instinct, I’m afraid.” He dropped the knife and rubbed sheepishly at the base of his neck. “Someone comes at you with a weapon and the training kicks in. My apologies.”

The apology that slipped out was so casual, cavalier. Why had he been unable to apologize when she’d really needed it? When it had mattered? She’d asked him once for his remorse and he could not give it, could not explain himself. For a moment Malika almost turned on her heel and left.

But she didn’t. She bit her tongue and pushed through.

“Well, I didn’t come to assassinate you. In broad daylight. In front of all these witnesses.” She gestured to the small crowd of people who milled about in Skyhold’s courtyard. Messengers, conscripts, shopkeepers and informants. “I came to borrow your whetstone.”

“My… whetstone?”

Malika held out her dagger once again, this time without reaction from Blackwall. “It’s getting dull. The other one too.” She twisted the one in her hand under the dappled light of the barn. The light caught on the blade, but there were obvious knicks in the once crisp edge. Still, it was a beautiful weapon, pale pink dawnstone with a braided leather handle.

He took a step towards Malika to get a closer look at it. He placed a hand over it, but it remained in her hand. She could feel the warmth radiating off him, residual heat from the fire or something else, she was unsure. “Killing too many darkspawn?” he asked, approval in his voice.

Malika nodded. “They’re getting more use than when I was working for the Carta. The Inquisition’s a bit more hands on than my old job was.” She grinned. They both appreciated a well-won fight. She was proud of the scars her face had collected, each of them a memory of a time she’d managed to walk away and someone else hadn't. She knew from first-hand experience that Blackwall had his own that ran the length of his torso, curving around and down to other, more interesting, places. Not too long ago she’d traced them with her fingertips while they whispered words she no longer remembered yet still felt important.

Taken aback by the sudden memory, Malika dropped her hand with the dagger, stuffing it unceremoniously in its hiding place at her hip. Her face was flushed.

Blackwall misinterpreted her actions and took a large step backwards, certain he’d overstepped her boundaries. She heard him exhale a nearly silent curse before starting again in a professional tone. “Why not visit Harritt in the undercroft? He is our blacksmith, after all. I’m sure he has the tools you would need.”

“I,” Malika started. “I, thought you would be more likely to have what I needed.” Blackwall perked slightly at that, at the thought of being needed. “Please don’t tell Harritt, his work is serviceable, of course, but when it comes to finesse, he leaves something to be desired.”

“What about Dagna?”

Malika smiled lightly at the thought of her dwarven friend in the undercroft. She had a soft spot for the excitable girl and had spent many hours with her, sitting by the waterfall that ran along Skyhold, dangling their feet above the spray. Dagna would try to convince Malika that magic was more than overpowered destruction and Malika would try to explain the same things about the artistry of a well-timed knife jab. Neither of them ever really saw eye-to-eye but that wasn’t important. “Dagna is certainly skilled, but I’m not exactly looking for an enchantment today.”

Blackwall ran a hand over his beard, trying to see what she was getting at, but he didn’t want to press his luck. “So you came to me because...?”

“I see you carving here when we’re not out saving Thedas, or whatever it is we’re doing here, and I know how detailed your work is.” She gestured to the carving he had been working on before she’d interrupted him, almost forgotten on the floor of the barn where he’d dropped it in surprise.

He nervously tried to step in front of her, to block her from looking closer. If he hadn’t acted so strangely, she would have moved on, but his actions made her put a hand to his side and push him gently out of the way. Kneeling down, she picked up the incomplete block of wood and turned it over in her hands.

Unfinished though it was, it was clearly the start of a tiny dwarven totem meant to look like some of the artifacts they’d found in the Hissing Wastes.

When they’d first come across scattered, unearthed ruins in the desert, she’d stopped the Inquisition’s trek through the sands. She’d been lost in them, touching the stone columns, reverently taking them in. Malika Cadash, though she could trace her heritage to an ancient dwarven house, knew she was rightly casteless. She had no misconceptions about her family’s reputation or position. They were violent, corrupt and had lost the old ways long ago. She had no right to claim those ruins as part of her.

But they had spoken to her. Called her back to a time she wished she had been a part of. Longing for something she never had.

Blackwall had noticed. He always noticed her. As someone who did her best to avoid attention by nature, Malika was both flattered and unnerved by this realization. More flattered than unnerved.

“Anyway,” she started again, voice higher than the had intended. “I was hoping you would be able to help me sharpen my blades. Give them a fresh start?” It was a question, about more than her daggers, there was no doubt.

“My supplies are yours whenever you need them, my Lady Inquisitor.”

“ _My Lady Inquisitor_?” she mimicked back to him.

Blackwall’s beard could not hide his half smile. “It seems like a good place to meet in the middle.”

Maybe he didn’t deserve it, but she did. She missed him. She wasn’t too proud to admit that, at least. So much had been sacrificed for the Inquisition, so much had been left behind.

She was carving her place in the stone of the world. Wasn’t she allowed one pebble of happiness to keep for herself?

Carefully she pressed the carving back into Blackwall’s hands. Her fingers lingered on his for a moment longer than they needed to. “You’ll have to show this to me once it’s done,” she said. “I’m sure it will be lovely.”


End file.
